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One of the most commonly used (Free) tools for testing just how fast (or slow) your website loads is Google’s PageSpeed Insights. PageSpeed Insights (PSI) was designed to meet the needs of those who are less technical.

On the flip side, another of Google tools “Lighthouse” is available for developers and techies wanting to really delve into page speed and other related issues.

Up until now, the two tools used different analysis engines and often gave confusingly different results.

Now, PSI is powered by Lighthouse. This allows you to get the same performance audits and recommendations everywhere: on the web and in Chrome DevTools.

PageSpeed Insights also incorporates field data provided by the Chrome User Experience Report.

 

Our recommendation: Test your site out on the new improved PageSpeed Insights and gain valuable insights into how to further speed up your website.

Loading speed is critical to have great SEO and for converting your traffic into customers.

Visit Google’s new PageSpeed tool here.

The last few months have seen Google roll out a number of changes. We saw the Mobile First Indexing begin to effect sites (more info on this below) and then most recently there have been a number of minor algorithm updates over the last 30 or so days.

The first of these started causing some noticeable fluctuation in the search results around the 8th of July. Then, last Wednesday (1st August) Google announced that they had made an update to their core algorithm.

The updates are based on page speed and search quality and they follow on from the Mobile first indexing change which has only very recently been introduced.

While it’s still early days – we’ve got loads of valuable data coming through on exactly how to further stay ahead of the game.

We’ll speak to each client individually over the coming 30 days about the results of auditing their websites in line with the latest changes.

Here is a 30,000ft overview of the recent happenings:

Mobile first indexing:

As we’ve finally passed the tipping point where more searches are performed on mobile devices than on desktops, Google is now using the mobile version of your website when evaluating the relevance of a page to a search query.

This means that more so than ever before, if you want to outrank your competition, you need to ensure that the following are in check:

1. Your website is really well optimised for mobile (from a technical perspective)
2. The individual pages on your site are a great fit for the mobile traffic that relates to them

                    The Technical:

Sites that have fully embraced the technical improvement needed around mobile first indexing are seeing a clear advantage and will continue to do so. Here are some helpful resources that your dev team can use to access exactly how your site shapes up:

• https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-first-indexing
• https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
• https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/03/rolling-out-mobile-first-indexing.html

Sites that have been migrated to mobile first indexing will have received the message below in Search Console (Webmaster tools).

Optimising for Mobile Relevance:

Some industries have a much higher volume (%) of mobile searches vs desktop. The food industry is one example of this. Here, the bulk of fast food is ordered from mobile devices.

If your website sells fast food and you wanted to rank highly for searches relating to this, it makes sense to ensure that your pages have the best “specific” content to match the search query.

In order to gain a ranking edge over your competitors, I suggest that you consider this question:

 “How does the specific content that your mobile users want to see vary from those who come in via desktop searches?”

Comment or shoot me a message to discuss this further and we can have a conversation about the best way to optimise around this.

So, what is all this noise about an Algorithm update?

Google announced last week that an update has been made to their core algorithm.

Basically, they’ve said that you should continue to improve your overall website by providing even better-quality content and experiences to your website visitors.

Here is their official word on the matter:

  “Each day, Google usually releases one or more changes designed to improve our results. Some are focused around specific improvements. Some are broad changes. Last week, we released a broad core algorithm update. We do these routinely several times per year.

As with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded.”

How to benefit from the changes:

As in all times of change, there’s a huge opportunity to further gain an edge over your competition.

Sites that have fully embraced mobile optimisation and the use of Accelerated Mobile Pages(AMP) are the ones that we’re seeing making the greatest ranking gains.

I recommend making the effort to really understand your mobile users and combining your technical and user level optimisation to make your most important pages even better.

NOTE: While we’re not seeing ranking drops across any client clients, if you’re reading this article in LinkedIn land or on other social sites and you are noticing changes – reach out to me and we’ll talk you through them.